Last Wednesday Chad came to visit and to my surprise Miss Cathy took a pass on going to the airport to pick him up. “It’s too cold out there buddy!” she said as if we were going to walk the twenty miles to the Baltimore-Washington International Airport.
His plane didn’t touch down till mid-afternoon so we had all morning to talk about his arrival. I’d known for several weeks that Chad was planning to visit but I didn’t tell Miss Cathy till last week because (frankly) I didn’t want his visit to be the “sixth” topic in her daily repertoire of five subjects: weather, traffic, death, family gossip and money (or lack thereof). I’m still feeling out the situation here and learning how to handle her but it seems that giving Miss Cathy a weeks’ “notice” (of upcoming events, appointments or changes to her routine) is working out pretty good (for me anyway), she gets enough time to digest the information, a few days to forget about it and then there’s still plenty of time to obsess and talk ad nauseum till “it” happens.
So, during the week there was the expected discussion of food and comfort, but on this day Miss Cathy (mostly) just wanted to state what she wouldn’t be doing. “I don’t need to go to any fancy restaurants or anything like that,” she said. “It’s too cold out there, besides I don’t need to spend all that money for food when I can make something to eat here at home for free.”
“Okay,” I thought to myself, first of all the food at home isn’t “free” you had to pay for it or they wouldn’t let you out of the grocery store (so, that’s not even “Miss Cathy logic”-that’s just straight up dumb) and as I’ve said before “whenever has she had to worry about paying? She’s never reached for (or been expected to pay for) any tab in the few restaurants she’s ever deigned to enter.” What I said was, “Well, Chad and I like to eat out so I’m sure we’ll be going to a few restaurants while he’s here and you’re welcome to join us. I’m probably going to be taking him to lunch when his plane lands and you can come if you want to.”
“That’s okay”, she replied, “I’ll just stay here.”
My, my, what a switch since the last visit, it’s only been a couple months since Chad was here and now a change in attitude. When he visited in October she was emphatic about going to the airport, saying that it would be rude “not” to show up and greet him, “How would it look?” she queried. “You always go to greet people when they come to visit.” she said, schooling me in the art of airport etiquette, telling me that it was bad manners not to and processed to show me how it was done; she took the rollers out of hair, got dressed and sat herself in the back seat ready to greet her guest
So, I guess what she neglected to mention (back when the weather was nice) was that airport manners are “seasonal” and apply only during the “better” months-as determined by what is or is not a temperature pleasant enough to toddle from a climate controlled Condo into a waiting car.
So, I went to the airport alone, driving along the Parkway looking at the landscape that like Miss Cathy’s logic had changed with the season.
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